


Treize

by miscreant_rose



Series: Cancelled 'verse [12]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Cancelled Verse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscreant_rose/pseuds/miscreant_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had been given a 5-minute writing challenge by @lalakate on tumblr. Before I had a chance to sit down a write, news of the Paris bombings broke, and my friends and I sat in a quiet shock at the cabin we had rented for the weekend, each of us scrolling our phone, occasionally sharing a comment of news snippet in hushed voices.  Overwhelmed, I pulled out my notebook and began to write down all my grief in the best way I knew how to process it.</p></blockquote>





	Treize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalakate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalakate/gifts).



The sky was barely lightening for the dawn even though he knew it was getting to be that time.His eyes were dry and his head ached, but still he sat there, laptop on the table beside him, television muted, but showing the same images again and again.  

Of course that would be how she found him.Silent as she always was, he could still sense her as clearly a physical touch, real and solid even before her fingers brushed lightly across his shoulder, stroking across his head as she stood behind him.

“You saw the text from Suzette?”

He took a deep breath, knowing there was no way he could answer, not even sure he could nod without losing his composure.But she knew and he felt her embrace tighten around him as her lips brushed his temple, and she stayed there, her own breathing unsteady for a moment.He closed his eyes, suddenly unable to bear the stream of pictures on the plasma screen.He reached for the remote where it had slipped down beside him and clicked off the television for the first time in hours.

Some how that made reality settle in all the harder.

Her voice was quiet but strong.“I want to take Lucy and George out to that farm by your mother’s today.And that park up there.”

Words bubbled up and out of him without making sense, without any reason.“George has a game today, and doesn’t Lucy have practice?”

The tension from her body hit him like a blow.The icy edge to her voice cut at him even deeper.

“I’ll call your mother in a couple hours and let her know we are heading up.I don’t want to disturb any plans she has, but if she is free, she can join us.”

He swallowed hard.

“We need this, Matthew. _I_ need this.”

The raw emotion in her words was as graphic as any media clip that he could still see all too clearly in his mind.

“I know.I —”

Her arms snaked around his chest and her face pressed into the side of his neck.He knew he didn’t need to say anymore, to explain his idiotic reflexive response, his attempt to slip back into normal when he knew damn well nothing would ever feel normal again.

He reached up to cover her hand with his, slipped out of her embrace so he could stand and pull her to his chest.Arms finding each other again, heartbeats slipping into the same steady rhythm even as a cloud of shared grief circled and wove its way in.  

She was right.They did need this.Some way to push pause, some way to protect, to shield, even if innocence would no longer be an option after today.

He dropped a kiss to her dark head, and he could feel the damp of her tears through his shirt as she trembled and began to push away.She didn’t lift her gaze to meet his, and he knew she was doing her best hold herself together, to wall away the part of her in danger of shattering with the wrong word or touch.

“Do you want coffee or tea this morning?”

Her own automatic question, but the husky whisper of her tone belied any semblance of normalcy.

“Coffee.”

And then it was silent, nothing but the quiet hiss of the brewer, the clink of spoons against stoneware for the next hour or so as each waited in their own quiet sorrow for the stir above them of those still untouched.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I had been given a 5-minute writing challenge by @lalakate on tumblr. Before I had a chance to sit down a write, news of the Paris bombings broke, and my friends and I sat in a quiet shock at the cabin we had rented for the weekend, each of us scrolling our phone, occasionally sharing a comment of news snippet in hushed voices. Overwhelmed, I pulled out my notebook and began to write down all my grief in the best way I knew how to process it.


End file.
